Page 75 of Hostile King

“Tomás…” Her anxious tone sticks an arrow in my heart, the agonizing sound making my stomach flip.

“It’s okay, baby, I won’t let them take you away from me.”

“Please—” She tries to inch closer, only to be halted after two steps. “Please, put the rifle down.”

I feel the punch of her alarm deep inside of me, so profoundly intrinsic it confuses me.

Within the dark corners of my distorted mind, I’m fighting the impulses to kill. Suppressing the character-building training my father had forced me to undertake throughout my teenage years. He told me it would make me superhuman like him, when we all knew it was his tyrannical attempt to break me—to take the credit for destroying my curse.

He had failed.

If only he knew all it would take was this woman. Her serendipitous seductive smile, intoxicating soft skin, and damaged soul. A soul so broken it weaves and binds with mine in a powerhouse of sublimity.

Fuck you Papá.

I could easily take a pop at these motherfuckers, one by one. But I’m afraid I’ll fuck up her life beyond forgiveness. Instead, I resist the strength of my cartel roots and tap onto the psyche of my mafia blood, showing an imaginable degree of tolerance.

It wouldn’t last.

Not while she’s so far away and her face is fucking miserable. I should rip my eyes out, so I don’t have to witness her turmoil. Our combined blood surges through my veins with force, I swear she physically lives within each of my organs and every skin cell.

“I’ll lower my weapon once you're back where you belong. Right here, beside me.”

As she takes another step away from the asshole holding her hostage, her brother pulls out a revolver and jabs the air with it, his expression stormy.

“Stay the hell back motherfucker,” he snarls at Shane over my shoulder who’s now joined my side, sensing this predicament is about to get out of control. “You’re a selfish bastard, Souza. You want to drop my sister into the criminal world and put her life at risk every day?”

“Sal!” Carina chokes out his name. Her plea wraps barbed wire around my aching heart and punctures the valves until it bleeds pain. “Don’t do this—”

Her brother ignores her plea. “How about you go home and forget all about her.”

“That’s impossible, Sal—your sisterismy home.” I say simply. “She’s the fucking air I breath. How could I forget about her when she’s everything I never knew I needed, and now I’ve experienced a life with her in it, I can’t, and won’t live without her. So go ahead—shoot me. I’ve already stared death in the eyes and fought the fucker to reach my girl again.”

Sal shakes his head and simultaneously claps his hand against the one holding the gun aimed at Shane.

“Wow, what a brilliant performance, Souza. I guess with having all that dirty money while growing up you could pay for drama classes. You should be on the stage, the crowd would love your bullshit, whereas we don’t give a flying fuck how you think you feel about Carina. She’s leaving with us. Go find yourself another girl to ruin. She’s not yours.”

I guess I had to live on the dark side to fully understand how the light would feel when Carina split through my heart like a laser with her light. The compulsion to pull the trigger charges through me, the intensity chaotic. For her, I grapple with my impulses and reign them in—to save her brother from my cataclysmic temper.

“That’s where you're wrong. I know her aching heart and adore her battle scars. She’s not just my girl in the common sense of the term, she’s, my queen. Her blood literally flows through my bloodstream, while her dark demons have befriended mine. It’s not a matter of letting her go anymore. Nothing could replace my love for her, not even money, drugs, or power. She belongs with me, right here…” I tap my hip. “…beside me. It’s that simple, and you, Salvador Ferreira will become my family one day too.”

We all witness Sal’s short fuse ignite with rage and how it detonates seconds later. His back goes poker straight and his aim jumps from Shane to me again.

“I have no qualms about putting a bullet through your fucking cold heart, asshole. Don’t fill her head with your shit.”

“Stop it, Sal!” Carina yells at him, but he’s too lost in the storm of his pure intentions to hear her.

My eyes cut to hers, intuitively sensing her panic. Her forehead creases, a deep-rooted concern twisting her face. She violently shirks out of the grip she’s been held in up till now and darts to the boulders at the side of us. Falling to her knees, I catch a glint of gold and swivel away from her brother's evil glare when I realize it's my gun.

I suck in a quick breath and hold up my hand when she reveals the weapon. “Carina.”

She ignores my sharp tone, forever the rebel and always unpredictable. Agitated wildlife hold their breath and even the moon takes a brief reprieve from powering the oceans as it slips behind a wispy cloud to hide from the bullet she fires into the sky.

A daring breeze dances with her hair and disturbs the flimsy material licking around her narrow waist. My dick goes rock hard in the presence of a goddess so unafraid of the men bartering over her future.

The way the light catches her scowl, it makes her eyes glow like comets with her skin supremely flawless. Under the moon, lost in the wild, in front of her family, I fall deeper in love with her than I ever thought possible.

I take a short stride towards her until she fires into the atmosphere again. Startled crows take flight, escaping the mayhem we’ve created. If I’d ever been concerned about losing my mind before, it was nothing compared to this insanity.

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